Martin Shkreli and Rising Pharmaceutical Costs

Whether or not you agree with one side on the debate over universal healthcare or subsidized healthcare for everyone, the undeniable truth is that medicine and drugs, especially the specialized ones or the rare cancer drugs. Each treatment or dose can translate to thousands of dollars. People are literally dishing a thousand a day to keep someone alive. And the biggest problem is that sometimes those drugs do not work that well and it is a complete failure. Sometimes it may only extend life for a couple of days or weeks. 

So what happened? Well, the big pharmaceuticals are relatively unchecked by our government and in other nations as well. Governments will address the effectiveness, production, and other parts of the drug, but don't really set a price ceiling.

Remember that HIV-AIDS drug Daraprim that had its price increased thousandfold? Think Martin Shkreli, the "pharma bro"
guy who was arrested on other securities fraud charges and who spent his money lavishly. His company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, bought Daraprim, a 60 year old drug that treats toxoplasmosis, and immediately raised the price from $13.50 a pill to $750! 

But that's only one instance. Some of those specialty drugs that we see on the tv commercials are rising. Consumer's aren't really noticing because most are covered under insurances and the only thing they need to pay are the co-pays. So what about those without insurance or who have different plans? Even for people with high-end insurance, some drugs are not even covered. People living in poverty simply cannot afford the drugs and must ware basically waiting for a death sentence.

FDA essentially allows big companies like Turing to monopolize the drug. Recently, Cycloserine, which treats dangerous forms of tuberculosis, increased from $500/30 pills to $10,800/30 pills. Valenat Pharmaceuticals aqcired Isuprel and Nitropress, heart drugs, from Marathon and raised them respectively by 525% and 212%. From 2013 to 2014, the antibiotic Doxycycline wen from $20/bottle to $1849/bottle!

Even if increasing prices is not profit-driven, it is still difficult to keep them in stock, lading to shortages, and severely impacting the patients in dire need of treatment. So do we need the government to set price ceilings? Wouldn't that impede on the rights of the companies? We want companies to operate freely but it is rather difficult to ensure they don't capitalize off of lax regulations to hoard money. There must be some way for the government to not exert too much power and also allow private companies to profit.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/everyone-hates-martin-shkreli-everyone-is-missing-the-point

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-increase-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html?mcubz=0

https://qz.com/851416/why-martin-shkreli-and-turings-daraprim-still-costs-750-in-the-us-when-australian-schoolkids-can-make-it-for-2/